To observe a surface of a material in an atomic resolution, a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) technology disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,343,993 may be used. The STM technology may be used to display an atomic-resolution image representing a surface of a material, based on a vacuum tunneling current localized by applying an external voltage to a gap between the material and a probe. However, in the STM technology, since the external voltage needs to be applied, Fermi electrons may be likely to be disturbed by the external voltage, and a narrow region may be scanned. Additionally, a sharp probe is required to generate a localized current, however, a yield may not be high due to a difficulty of forming a sharp probe.
To avoid the above disadvantages of the STM technology, a scanning thermoelectric microscope may be used instead of an STM. However, since it is generally known that it is difficult to localize heat in space, it may be difficult to actually implement the scanning thermoelectric microscope.
Recently, a technology of observing a surface of a material at an atomic resolution using a scanning thermoelectric microscope has been disclosed in “Thermoelectric imaging of structural disorder in epitaxial graphene” prepared by S. Cho, et al. and published in 2013 in arXiv: 1305.2845 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2845) and Nature Mater. 12, 913.
Accordingly, it is desired to acquire an atomic-resolution image from a surface of a material, using a scanning thermoelectric microscope that is an actual apparatus, and to simulate a form of the surface using a computer to determine an atomic structure corresponding to the acquired atomic-resolution image.